


Wishes on a Dandelion

by KingStygian, starthirst (KingStygian)



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26680756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingStygian/pseuds/KingStygian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingStygian/pseuds/starthirst
Summary: Nursing his broken heart at Oxenfurt among his new life as a professor, Jaskier tries to put his life as Geralt's friend and bard behind him, working on getting over his broken heart. Jaskier's got his own life, he doesn't need Geralt. Unfortunately, the heart wants what it wants so when he comes in contact with a djinn and ends up wishing that he never fought with Geralt on the mountain. Now he's in a new reality where Geralt and he are together but he's lost everything else. When Yennefer arrives and reveals he's unbalanced the forces of chaos, Jaskier has to face the question, is it really better to have loved and lost than not?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Kudos: 27
Collections: Witcher Big Bang





	1. Wishes Wither

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of the Witcher Big Bang hosted and organised by Seren! Thanks Seren for organizing everything :) Huge shout out to https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tsukiwolf42 for all the hard work beta'ing the work and https://vebirascanvas.tumblr.com/ for the awesome art! Thanks for supporting me during the process, friends, I hope you had as much fun as I did :)
> 
> This was written all as one piece but I myself didn't like the format of dropping all the text into one piece so I've split it up into a few chapters. As usual, I don't own these characters or this world, I'm only play around with it.  
> Happy Reading!

“So,” Jaskier begins without any of his usual prolusion as he flops down at his desk, “I was having such an excellent day,”

His co-worker, Professor Rirele from the Department of Chemistry didn’t even look up from her papers, quill in hand, and a scowl on her face customary to one who decided to make a living with arithmetic.

“Before you scolded Professor Toutcasse for being hungover at lunch or after?” she inquires, her voice a tad reproachful.  
Jaskier pokes his tongue out at her childishly. So, his first week was a bit rocky. He could be forgiven for going a little overboard with the fortified wine nightcaps the evening before his first-ever lecture.

“It was an excellent day,” Jaskier repeats, ignoring Rirele’s attempt to chide him. If Toutcasse wanted to be hungover during his rhetoric lectures, that was his business, so long as he didn’t throw up on Jaskier again. He was ten minutes late to his afternoon class because he was trying to scrub the vomit smell out of his clothes. They’re going to smell like bile forever now. Jaskier wrinkled his nose and dramatically threw his arms over his head. He peeks out from under the crook of his arm. Rirele was trying her hardest to ignore him but after a moment of Jaskier melodramatically moping she relents.

“But then?” she asks, drawling and single tone.

“I found out that capricious Edmund Bumbler is trying to reserve the auditorium for an exhibition a week before my student’s exhibition,” Jaskier slouches further in his chair, folding his arms sullenly.

“So?” Rirele prompts, dipping her quill before making a suggested alteration to a student’s formula. The ink she favored was red dark and the closest thing to blood Jaskier has seen as of late. One of the perks of not facing a new monster every other week. A lot less blood, even if you counted the bar fights of Oxenfurt nightlife.

“So?” Jaskier leaps up, exclaiming, “So, Bumbler is already barred from reserving the general hall because last time he had an exhibition his animals stunk up the place. The hall still stinks of cow shit to this day. I’ll be damned if I let him do the same thing to the auditorium.”

Rirele finally looks up, adjusting her spectacles with one hand and setting her quill down with the other. She cocks her head to the side, thinking.  
“Bumbler already got permission to use the southbound fields for his exhibition. I wonder why he decided to move it.”

Jaskier flops back down in his chair, the force almost knocking his line of solved puzzles off their pedestal on the lift top of his writing desk. He pauses to fix them, pushing them back into a line before continuing on his rant.  
“Because he hates me,” which is completely true. Bumbler hated Jaskier. For why, Jaskier couldn’t care to find out. Was it because Jaskier had the audacity to request Bumbler remove the rat’s nest he called an archive from the fine arts office so he could do playthroughs without disturbing anyone? Most likely. Jaskier couldn’t prove it but Bumbler absolutely was dragging his feet, claiming that he needed to sort the paperwork carefully so he didn’t lose any progress on his research. He was lucky Rirele offered to let him share an office with her or he’d likely be in the broom cupboard. Even though she was possibly the grumpiest alchemist on the Continent, Rirele was a great deal more accommodating than Bumbler.

“Well, I’m sure the Dean will take all the relevant factors into consideration,” Rirele says, aggressively dotting an ‘i’, “Before she tells Bumbler to fuck off.”

Jaskier snorts. He begins unpacking his satchel of all the essays and half-formed compositions his own students have written. It’s clear that Jaskier has to revisit the Circle of Fifths in his next lecture from the clumsy key changes in their rehearsal last week. A lot of disharmonic sounds which would not do for their debut. He settles and begins to modify his lesson plan, since while they were revisiting the circle of fifths, they might as well pass over the basics again. A one to one session with each student regarding their notation wouldn’t go amiss either. He could chalk it up to nerves but the student’s notation was starting to slip.

It feels like he’s only just put pen to paper when absently he hears Rirele draw the curtains, light the torches on either side of the room and sit back down. It must be dark outside already. The nights were getting longer and the twilight lasted for hours now. The curse of winter.  
The frown lifts from her round face as Rirele sets down the last of her marking. She flexes her hand to stave off writer’s cramp and, in the process, nearly spills ink all over her desk.   
Rirele rises, drawing her capelet around her shoulders. Jaskier regrets not wearing his long tunic. He’s starting to feel the cold now that the sun has gone.

“Come on, we’re going to be late for dinner,” Rirele says as she fastens the buckle on her book bag, “Dean Shani requested that all the Professors were at dinner to meet our new colleague.”

“Who?” Jaskier hastily jots down his last few amendments to his lesson plan. He could review the changes later in his room. Wasn’t like he was getting much sleep these days anyway.

“Carnegie Ranafein,” Rirele does that thing where she rolls her eyes without actually rolling her eyes at him, “This is why you should read the newsletter. He’s the new hire for the Department of Supernatural Phenomena.”

“A Ban Ard boy then?” Jaskier has had his fill of supernatural phenomena seven times over and that includes snobby, handsome sorcerers, be they graduates or dropouts. Ban Ard alumni have never been anything but trouble in Jaskier’s experience. Although, there were one or two that were worth the trouble, despite Geralt’s protests.

Geralt.

Jaskier’s face scrunches up, sour with the memory of his name. Damn it. He was doing so well not thinking about him. Great, now he was agonizing about not thinking about him and in the process thinking about him too much. Rirele looks at him, partly worried but mostly befuddled at his sudden sour face.

Before he has to explain, the door swings open and Jaskier hears a meek voice utter “Professor”.

He breaks out of his loop of self-pity and odium, refocusing on the room. There’s a student at the door. Ah, it’s that boy with hazel eyes that always passes notes in his lectures. Cheeky thing. Started with a N. It might be Neville? Norbert, perhaps. He steps into the room tentatively. The candlelight catches the ruddiness of his cheeks and the short huffs of breath turned into mist in the cold night air. He must have run here to catch Jaskier before he left.

“It’s the end of office hours,” Rirele says flatly, crossing her arms. The red in Norbert’s bouncy cheeks immediately increase tenfold.  
“Of course.” He looks at the papers in his hands, somewhat startled to see that they’re there, “I see.”  
Jaskier looks at him pityingly. It wasn’t so long ago that he was a bright-eyed boy excited to show his compositions to anyone who would listen.  
“That’s alright, Professor Halenski,” Jaskier holds out his hand, beckoning the boy forward to take the paper, “He just caught me.”

Rirele leans to one side to let the boy past. Norbert avoids looking into her eyes like he’s a baby bunny and she’s an eagle that’s about to carry him off for dinner. Smart. He’d been the same when he first got here. Even now, it was hard for Jaskier to look into Rirele’s piercing eyes. It was like she could tell that he’d done something even if he hadn’t done it yet. No doubt it was a glare she’d perfected over years of teaching.

Jaskier looks at the first page in his hands and there’s a lot to talk about. He smiles apologetically to Rirele.  
“I’ll see you there Rirele, I’ve a few errands to run before dinner anyway.”  
He did still have to set up the music room for his lesson tomorrow, otherwise he’d have to get up extra early to do it, and Jaskier, strangely, would prefer to sleep past dawn.  
Rirele nods in understanding but still throws her hands in the air in mock annoyance.  
“Suit yourself, Pankratz. Don’t forget to blow the candles out when you’re done,”  
“Of course,” Jaskier calls after her.

Jaskier indicates for Norbert to sit down in the chair opposite the desk. The cushions squeak under Norbert as he sets himself down.  
It takes him a few minutes to read the composition, by the end, Jaskier feels a pain starting to bloom at his temples.  
Jaskier was never going to allow himself to feel bad about overcomplicating anything ever again because Norbert has overthought the composition to high holy hell. He’s added so much syncopation on top of the melismatic sequence he might as well have been smashing random notes together. The accents are going to sound clumsy, lumpy like a loaf of bread that wasn’t kneaded properly, resulting in the singer sounding out of tune. Norbert seems to have realized this but instead of erasing the accents has tried to patch the problem with way too many passing notes. Jaskier grimaces. This piece has been so severely altered since he last saw it. A week ago, it was nearly ready to do the first full playthrough. Now, Jaskier could barely comprehend what it was supposed to sound like in his mind’s ear.  
“What is it I’m looking at here Mr. Siddak?” Jaskier is careful with his tone. A lot of students didn’t take feedback all that well. Coincidentally, these were the same students that bombed their final performances.

“Oh, I have the updated notation of my piece that I’d like your feedback on,” Norbert states obtusely.  
“Just at first glance, it looks like you made a few... alterations…” Jaskier says gently, “Would you mind explaining why?”  
Nobert looks down at his hands, fingers tangled in his lap.  
“You said to change the key in the second movement,” He says slowly like Jaskier asked him a trick question.  
Jaskier nods, “I remember. Did you?”  
Norbert nods eagerly, “Yes Professor, and I changed the third back to the home key and decreased the tempo. You were right, it was too fast.”  
Of course, he was right.

“So, Norbert, I have to ask. Why all the other changes?”  
Norbert pinks at the ears, “I’m not quite sure,” he answers slowly.  
Jaskier smiles comfortingly as he stands, borrowing some red ink from Rirele’s desk, “Fast and complicated doesn’t mean good and interesting. All those changes make the piece muddy.”  
Norbert slumps in his chair like he knows this. He does. It was one of the very first lessons that Jaskier taught when he arrived at Oxenfurt. All the debut students got so tied up in trying to write a unique piece they often forgot it. Jaskier jots down his amendments. A bit of simplification here and there, some running riffs, and well, it was almost better than it was a week ago. A good place for Norbert to start without beginning again. He blots the ink and hands it back to Norbert.  
“Make these restorations and you should be fine,” Jaskier says, standing and handing the parchment back to Norbert,“I suggest doing some playthroughs. If you can’t play it by yourself, you’ve over scaled the composition,”  
A bit hypocritical coming from Jaskier, who still overwrote parts for his own songs. He had pages and pages of baselines and percussion tablature that had never seen the light of day. The students didn’t need to know that.

“Okay, Professor.” Norbert half smiles, looking at all the corrections.   
Jaskier begins snuffing out the candles and ushering out Norbert, who otherwise would have sat in the room analysing his notes.

He slings his bag over his shoulder and pulls the door closed after him.  
“If that’s all Norbert, I’ll see you bright and early for rehearsals tomorrow morning and we can discuss it more then,” Jaskier smiles, waving.  
“There was one more thing,” Norbert says hurriedly, digging through his bag. Jaskier watches as Norbert near dives into his bag trying to retrieve something. Finally, he looks up, proud, and offers a brown package as big as a fist to Jaskier.

Jaskier is used to receiving gifts from students. Bribes usually, for better grades, information about the faculty, and sometimes because they thought he was handsome and wanted to form an attachment to Jaskier which was, in his opinion, a very inappropriate relationship. Jaskier had no interest in anything like that. He’d been warned about accepting anything from students, Rirele had far too many colourful stories, both first and second-hand that are enough to dissuade anybody from accepting anything. But Norbert didn’t seem like that kind of kid.  
Norbert holds it out, waiting for Jaskier to take it. Cautiously, Jaskier takes the package, which he was surprised to find was very dense, like a paperweight. Pulling at the twine that held the linen around it, revealing a small metal ball with lines on it. It looks like an apple, for a moment, until the firelight of the hallway sconces catches the sheen of the copper coated sphere. A mechanical puzzle that opened up when you solved it. Jaskier has a few of those already, they were his favourite kind. He tries to turn the top column and hears a distinct clicking sound. That’s fun.

Norbert beams at him, excited he explains, “I heard you like puzzles. I couldn’t solve this one and thought maybe you’d have more luck.”

It did look like someone had tried to force the pieces to turn in ways they weren’t meant to. It looked like a fun night in.  
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Siddak but this won’t impact how I grade your work,” Jaskier says seriously because that’s what he told all the students that tried to buy good grades with trinkets.  
Norbert flounders. “I- oh, oh no sir, I didn’t even think, I wasn’t trying to-”  
Jaskier holds up a hand to shush him. Norbert grows redder by the second.  
“I know you weren’t but in the future remember to think about what others might assume.”

Norbert nods hurriedly. He steps back from Jaskier, almost to hyper demonstrate that he’s not after any kind of favour from Jaskier. Jaskier checked his surroundings. It was awfully dark, even with the candlelight the sconces offered.   
“Which way are you going?” Jaskier inquired.

Norbert looked behind him, searching for someone.  
“Back toward the bridge, I’m going into town with my friends,”

“Don’t let me hold you up,”

Jaskier shrugged and headed to his music room. He shivered as a cool breeze dusted his face. Jaskier turned to remind Norbert to get out of the cold as soon as he could but as he looked down the long hall, he couldn’t see anyone. The candles were growing dimmer.


	2. Wishes Regrow W.I.P

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written as part of the Witcher Big Bang hosted and organised by Seren! Thanks Seren for organizing everything :) Huge shout out to https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tsukiwolf42 for all the hard work beta'ing the work and https://vebirascanvas.tumblr.com/ for the awesome art! Thanks for supporting me during the process, friends, I hope you had as much fun as I did :)
> 
> This was written all as one piece but I myself didn't like the format of dropping all the text into one piece so I've split it up into a few chapters. As usual, I don't own these characters or this world, I'm only play around with it.  
> Happy Reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually lost the finished file and got really stressed out trying to fix it so for now I'll just post what I have and hope that's okay.

Jaskier is immediately reminded of why he likes to walk with Rirele to the dining hall as soon as he steps into the corridor.  
Yes, Rirele is excellent company, witty, a bit pettier than one might expect but overall, Jaskier needed a walking buddy. It wasn’t so much superstition like most of the other professors teased as it was totally practical. Jaskier can’t help but imagine creatures lurking in the corner of his eye. Terrible aberrations with fanged maws dripping with blood and ichor, waiting, just behind Jaskier, to gobble him up. True, he was a little old to believe in big bad wolves and boogeymen but he knew enough to know what they really were.  
The moon is half full, casting long shadows in the night and something about tonight has Jaskier’s imagination in overdrive.   
If he was a betting man, it could be the shadow that’s been following Jaskier for the last ten minutes. 

Jaskier focused on his heartbeat, willing it to stay steady. One of the many horrifying tidbits Jaskier had learned about monsters is that most of them could smell the chemosignals. This made for easy hunting, just smell out the human reeking of fear and there was dinner. Convenient for monsters, not so much for Jaskier. They might be spurred into attacking him, or running away and coming back later to snack on a student.

Jaskier’s hand slid slyly into his side bag, finding the cool grip of his silver dagger.  
It was a night the same as this one, where Geralt had pressed the dagger into Jaskier’s palm before embarking on a job. They were camped in a pretty dicey area, and the people in the town weren’t very accommodating to Witcher’s despite needing the help of one. Geralt had insisted that Jaskier should stay in the town with him but Jaskier wouldn’t have it.

Geralt would know exactly what was following him in a second. The hum of his medallion would quickly decide whether or not Jaskier was over-reacting.

The man holds up his hands in surrender, not at all alarmed that Jaskier almost filleted him. Jaskier scans the man, checking for telltale signs of monster. No fangs, or horns, or claws. No slitted pupils or jawlines that were a bit too symmetrical, like the fae folk. Just a regular man with coiled copper hair and dark eyes that matched his dark robes.   
Robes with an irregular amount of detailing and piping Jaskier noticed a lot of Yennefer’s clothes had.   
Jaskier abruptly sheaths the dagger before he makes a bad impression.   
“Jumpy, aren’t you scholar?” the mage drawls, having no business being so smug.  
“You know, when someone asks ‘Who’s there?’, it’s polite to respond.” Jaskier says, a little too pointedly.  
Can he be blamed? He nearly buried his blade in the handsome man’s eye because he was incapable of making some kind of sound to let Jaskier know that he came in peace?  
“Carnegie Ranafein,” he says, “I was wondering if you could help me, I seem to have gotten myself turned around.”  
Great.  
“Ah, Professor Ranafein,” Jaskier sticks out a gloved hand, “Julian Alfred Pankratz from the Faculty of Trouvereship and Poetry.”  
Ranafein takes Jaskier’s hand and pumps it twice, politely.  
“Well, if you could follow me, I’ll lead you to the hall.”

“You’re familiar, have I met you somewhere?”

“Ah,” Ranafein snaps his fingers, “You’re the White Wolf’s bard, the one that wrote the song,”

“Okay, you seem to have the wrong idea. I wrote that song, but I am not anyone’s bard. Certainly not his,” Jaskier threw the doors of the dining hall open, “So keep that to yourself,”

He takes the seat that Rirele saved for him. She hands him some cutlery with an arched eyebrow. He waves her off.  
“I’m fine, I’ll tell you later,” he promises.  
***  
The academy knocker-upper raps at his door heartily. Jaskier wakes in his bed, and congratulates himself for not falling asleep at his desk again. He might not be in his sleeping clothes but at least he managed to take off his shirt and shoes. It was about the small victories. 

He stretches, reluctantly sitting up to avoid drifting back to dreamland.  
Jaskier groans when he sees the letter sitting on his writing desk. He rubs his eyes, hoping that the letter with disappear if he rubs hard enough. It sits, perfectly square in the middle of the desk like it dropped from the sky, sealed in wax with a morning star imprint. Jaskier hasn’t even picked it up but he knows that it is scented with gooseberries and lilac.

He doesn’t want to open the letter immediately, but he knows better than to test this tepid allyship he’s reached with Yennefer. Since they clambered down that mountain together, they’ve been on better terms. Jaskier was shocked the first time she sent him a letter a month after they parted ways in Hengfors to see how he was doing. The letters were sparing, but Yennefer had a knack for sending them right when Jaskier wasn’t as adjusted as he could be. She also doesn’t like to be kept waiting, despite having no qualms in being waited on and by some magic knew when her letters had been open.  
At least she was wrong this time around in view of the fact that Jaskier was doing great.  
Not to pat himself on the back but he took- for lack of a better term, the break up rather well. He didn’t cry, he didn’t scream, didn’t try and get into any trouble he couldn’t handle, though he did drink. He simply crunched all of those knobby annoying emotions, stuck them in a box labeled ‘do not open’ and took the first opportunity that offered any sense of stability. Yennefer called that unhealthy compartmentalizing, Jaskier called it efficiency.  
That’s how he ended up back at Oxenfurt. He just happened to be in the right place and the right time. Call it luck, call it passing out at Shani’s feet miserably drunk, or call it the universe giving him a chance to rest his weary feet and give him an opportunity to write a whole new collection of songs to woo and sway the audiences of the Continent that had nothing to do with Geralt.

He picked it up and found another one sitting under it.  
Jaskier frowned. One letter was addressed to him. The other was address to Geralt. Another strange detail was that the letter was addressed to Jaskier by name. Not ‘Crows feet’ or ‘Bard’ or any other derogatory sobriquet she could think of. She’d sent him a letter addressed to him by name once and the reason being that she had the letter delivered by messenger and not magic. Oh, and Julian Alfred Pankratz that one time in retaliation for when he sent her one addressed as ‘Yenny of Venny’. 

‘Jaskier,’ the letter began. There was an ink blot indicating that she hesitated in what she was going to write next,  
‘May this letter find you in good health.’, followed by several crossed out half formed sentences.  
‘Fuck it, I’m not going to fumble around with these niceties, you know I mean well. I am writing to tell you that I am heading into a perilous situation, one which I am uncertain I will survive.’  
“Holy shit,” Jaskier said to the empty room. What did she mean by that? Last he heard from her she was travelling to Caingorn to see another mage. She didn’t mention a feud or any kind of danger.

I wouldn’t ask this of you if I could burden anyone else with this favor and you needn’t feel obliged to indulge me but should you ever see Geralt again, please give him the other letter. In case you’re curious, don’t you dare read it. There are some things I have to say to him. I haven’t been able to track him down with any means, which in itself is troubling, but not surprising.’

(Oxenfurt is the purgatory that Jaskier has chosen for himself. He was both far from any mighty deed that could count as inspiration for even a limerick, yet nestled in the heart of the city where minstrels, bards and poet’s alike echo odes to deeds of splendor, reflecting back the grandeur that Jaskier so missed. Thankfully, ‘Toss a Coin’ was so common in a bard’s repertoire that the up and comers found it embarrassing to admit that they knew it, so Jaskier was spared the hell of having to listen to it being played to death.

Until tonight.

Jaskier was enjoying a pleasant night on the town with a few of the other professors, Rirele, Jonne, Nicodemus, and a few others whose names escaped him- when some baby-face minstrel began to play the first sour notes of that wretched song.)

Rirele was sitting at the side front table, close to the bar and the stage but not in the splash zone of any squabbles. In a city filled to the gills with scholars, bards and freethinkers, it’s no surprise egos clash often. She’s brought Nicodemus from Philosophy and Jonne from, well it was either applied archeology or natural history, Jaskier wasn’t quite sure and at this point, he didn’t want to ask. Regardless, the man could gripe about Bumbler for days before he ran out of material which was saying something, since Jaskier would start recanting the same points about an hour in. 

“I’m just sayin’,” Nicodemus chattered in his thick Cidaris accent, “If the Academy has the money to hire new faculty members, they have enough money to rebuild that warped to fuck wooden bridge in the east wing so I don’t eat shit every night when I’m going back to my quarters after dinner.”   
Jonne rolls his eyes, pushing a stein of ale towards Jaskier in greeting.  
“And how the fuck are you going to get to and from the east wing while they do that? Walk on air? That bridge is the only way between the east and center.” He asks.

Nicodemus frowns seeing the error in his gripe.

“Wouldn’t they just build another bridge and then knock the other one down?” He tries.

“My point being,” Nicodemus throws his hands up, “The academy needs maintenance, there are more and more students every year. Half the halls and classrooms are closed so we’re all cramped up and the permits the academy paid the council to have that Ban Ard alum come teach plus salary would have been enough to fix up the rooms in the north wing at least,”

“Permits?” Rirele asks.

“A few Kings ago mages weren’t allowed to practice in Redania,” Jaskier explains, “Which is funny since, if I recall correctly, that King didn’t mind having a few pet mages to cook up potions and solutions when he wanted them,”

“So Ranafein needs a permit to practice any magic?”  
“Technically it’s a teaching permit, but that’s basically what it is.” 

“I don’t know. I have a weird feeling about him.”

“Weird how?”

The rest of the pub did not begin to pelt the minstrel with bread or discourage him from continuing. A bit of solidarity from the world would have been too much to ask for. Quite the opposite. The pub began with singing along with the minstrel who was applying an atrociously liberal amount of vibrato to the melody.  
“Gentlefolk, I’ll be talking my leave now,”  
***  
Fuck Geralt.  
Can he just say that? 

Fuck Geralt, the selfish prick. 

And leaving him on that mountain? If Yennefer wasn’t there to travel with Jaskier, who knows what could’ve happened to him. He could’ve been eaten in his sleep for who knows what.

Jaskier empties the last of the port into his goblet, knowing full well that he was going to regret this in the morning.

“Professor?”  
Jaskier groans, then silences himself.

Jaskier cracked open the door. Norbert was standing there, his face flushed and his brow sweaty, even in this crisp winter night.

Regret crawled out from under his ribs, his heart swollen with sadness. He was going to die, alone in his chambers, drunk without having said any of the many things he needed to say to Geralt.  
He wished that they never fought.

The light burst from his fist, the air around him suddenly agitated, turning around him under the wind was pulling mortar off the walls and ripping open his windows. Distinctly, he hears Norbert scream ‘No!’ and through the searing haze of the light he can see Norbert’s face twist and turn until he was Ranafein. There not much for Jaskier to do, as the floor falls away and he falls down, into the whiteness of the void.  
***  
When he comes to, there is a distinct ringing in Jaskier’s ears and a piercing white that makes Jaskier fear that his eyes might pop out of his skull from the strain of having to comprehend its brightness. He tries to blink away the fogginess from his vision but for a few minutes all he can see are vague shapes and colors that sharpen, the details of a wooden ceiling emerging. A little concerning, since Jaskier’s quarters didn’t have a wooden ceiling but he’d work through that.  
Step one was getting some water, his mouth was drier than a camel’s arse. His tongue felt like it was made from sponge.

Jaskier moves to shuffle out from under the covers but found that he was wrapped up in somebody’s arms. Strong arms. Strong arms that made it hard for him to move at all. Jaskier has had enough torrid affairs to know what it’s like to wake up in a stranger’s arms. He usually doesn’t find himself pleasantly tucked under the sheets in a scrumptiously soft bed nor does he find himself in no hurry to leave despite a few flags being raised, like how he got there. There was a kind of bliss weighing on his mind, dragging him back to unconsciousness, trying to convince him that nothing was amiss, that it was okay to go back to sleep. It’s almost nice enough to distract him from the intense, bone-deep pain throbbing through his entire body. Gods, his head is throbbing so hard it’s almost vibrating off his neck which speaking of that same someone that’s currently holding him has their face pressed firmly into his nape, gently ticking the tender skin with every exhale.  
Jaskier heaves a heavy sigh. Not even five minutes awake and he has to deal with whatever ridiculous decision he made last night. Jaskier knows it’s going to be dreadful when he realizes he doesn’t recall drinking at all. Not to the point where he couldn’t remember how he got here. He’s had his few drinks with his colleagues, then a few more ports in his quarters until Norbert showed up and-  
Oh no.  
Jaskier turns in horror. He prays that whoever is behind him is not a fucking student. Jaskier wouldn’t be the first or the last to take a student to bed but he’d definitely be just as bad. Surely drunk Jaskier wasn’t that stupid. He massages his temples, letting out a self-pitying whine. He turns his head and catches an eyeful of pearl white hair.  
All at once, Jaskier’s senses kick in and he smells pine, smokey and a kind of spicey musk that Jaskier couldn’t name.  
He can hear an ever familiar tempo of breathing, a inhale-two-three-pause-two-three-exhale-two-three, a pattern that he’d listen to when Geralt slept when he let Jaskier keep watch, a beat he’d agonize over when Geralt was hurt and his breathes were quicker, shorter.  
Geralt.  
Wait. Jaskier stumbles through what he knows. Norbert had given him the puzzle, Jaskier saw him change into a man, change into Ranafein before that blinding white light had put him to sleep. He must have knocked him out and brought him here. More questions on that later but why is Geralt here? In bed with him no less.  
Doppler.

That was the only explanation. A doppler must have been posed as Norbert. Jaskier frowned. Maybe it had something to do with the stupid puzzle box.  
Okay, to hell with the first step being water. The first step of his plan to deal with this whole situation was to suppress his knee jerk reaction to scream. Second was to slide away from the Not-Geralt as carefully as possible, then sneak out and run was probably the best he could do. It could be therapeutic to find something pointy and stab the doppler to death but somehow, Jaskier knew he wouldn’t have the stomach for it.

Jaskier wiggles against Not-Geralt’s embrace. Not-Geralt grumbles, squeezes him and unexpectedly places a kiss against his nape. A burst of white-hot numbness surges up and down Jaskier’s spine before he reminds himself that this was not Geralt. Geralt would never, in a thousand years, kiss him. Even by accident. Jaskier bristled with the bitterness.  
“Geralt,” Jaskier whispers urgently, “Let me go, I need to piss.”  
Not-Geralt lets out a reluctant sigh, pressing his face briefly into Jaskier’s back. He kisses Jaskier again and then complies, releasing Jaskier from his python-like embrace. Not-Geralt creaks open his eyes, ever so slightly, familiar yellow eyes watching him rise from the bed, then fluttering closed again. Jaskier’s knees buckle, completely unprepared for the sight of Geralt, shirtless, hair down, stubble haloing his stupid perfect square jaw. Even if they were just a doppler, Jaskier was getting that annoying clamminess that swept across his entire body and made him smell like a bundle of nerves.

Alright, he needs to get out while he can. Jaskier scans the room for anything useful, coin, a knife, rations. A cursory glance out the kitchen window suggests that he’s not even close to the outskirts of Oxenfurt. If the doppler took him last night after whatever that blinding light was, and it looks to be early morning now, he can’t be more than a day’s ride away. Judging by how hungry he is, normal hungry and not ravenous, he didn’t sleep through an entire day which supports his idea of being a day away from Oxenfurt.  
On Not-Geralt’s side of the bed are two very convincing looking swords sheathed in their baldric. Not much help to Jaskier. A doppler absorbed the skills of their target as well as their face, even if the doppler only has a quarter of Jaskier’s skill, he’s going to be outmatched. He was relying on the fact that the doppler wanted him for something. Otherwise why create this whole façade and go through all this effort unless it was to torture him. Better to not stick around and find out. Hopefully Rirele or Nicodemus or somebody had noticed he was missing and was informing Shadi but he couldn’t rely on a search party to save him. It was just him and the doppler.  
Jaskier’s eyes fall on his boots. Thank Gods, he’s not going to have to run away barefooted at least. It gives Jaskier a reason to glance downwards at his clothes. It’s a black shirt. 

“Jask,” Not-Geralt calls from the bed.  
Jaskier freezes but he can hear the sheets rustling as Not-Geralt rolls out of bed.  
“Jask, where are you going?” Not-Geralt was pulling on his pants, “Jaskier?”

“Stay back,” Jaskier snaps.  
The bastard has no business twisting those handsome features into such a portrait of confusion and despondence. Not-Geralt doesn’t even say anything to defend himself or offer an explanation. He just reaches for him, carefully.  
He throws the door open and stumbles out.  
The salt in the air burns his throat, the sudden chill strips away the warmth from Jaskier’s skin and shakes him fully awake.  
“Jaskier! Stop!” Geralt shouts from behind him.  
Geralt uses his full weight to tackle him to the ground. Jaskier kicks his legs, seeking leverage to squirm from Geralt’s grip. His hands twist in the grass, trying to find something to brace against. His hands skim the edge of the earth, vacant space where the ground should be. Jaskier turns his head and realizes all at once that there was no ground because they were on the edge of a very tall, very drop-offable cliff. Startled, Jaskier stops fighting against the Witcher who is wrestling to keep him from plunging to his demise. Geralt quickly scoots the both of them back, pulling Jaskier into his lap.

“You great idiot!” Geralt snarls, shaking Jaskier by the shoulders. His hair is unbound, silver-white strands falling against his face. “You could’ve fallen. What would I have done then?”  
“I’m sorry,” Jaskier mumbles, dumbly. He wants to scream, ask how he got here, why he was here with Geralt but all he can do say is “I don’t know what came over me,”

Geralt huffs at him, outwardly annoyed but the way his thumb traces over Jaskier’s cheek betrays that he was more worried than anything. He smooths his hands down Jaskier’s arms until he’s holding both Jaskier’s hands.  
Jaskier watches Geralt’s face, studying for anything peculiar, a missing scar, or dimpled temple. He knows that if a doppler has stolen him, he won’t catch them out but the silver of his ring should’ve burnt them. There’s not even a sizzle.  
“Come now,” Geralt says, standing. He lifts Jaskier up with him as easy as he’d hoist a sack of flour over his shoulder.  
Geralt winds one arm around Jaskier’s waist, bringing him into step.  
“I told you that bump on the head was worse than you thought.”

“Back to bed now, fool,” he says softly in Jaskier’s ear, leading Jaskier back towards the cottage, “You’ll catch a chill and moan about for weeks.”

The sea breeze had caught Jaskier by surprise, who was only in his thin linen undershirt. Geralt’s bulk was a welcomed warmth as he was led back to the bed. The sheets were still warm from their bodies. Geralt laid him down and tucked him under the sheets. In another odd display of affection that Jaskier was not prepared for, Geralt smoothed over his hair.  
“Stay Jask,” he said lowly, “Stay here, I’ll come back to bed after I’ve checked on Roach.”  
Then he rose from the place he was kneeling next to the bed and was gone.

His lute for anything, anything at all that could tell him how he got here. Better yet, why Geralt was acting like they’d never fought to begin with.

Jaskier lays there, racking his brain for anything that could help him understand his current situation. Geralt doesn’t return for a while but he can hear a wooden clanging outside the cottage. When he finally decides to get up, Geralt comes back inside. He strips his shirt off and ducks under the covers. He pulls the cold in with him yet Jaskier finds comfort in the way Geralt’s arms wrap around his middle, bracketing their bodies together. Geralt kisses the Jaskier’s nape, sending a shiver down his spine.

**  
Jaskier abruptly realizes how famished he is when Geralt presses a plate into his hands, brushing a hand through his hair as he returns to the kitchen to plate himself some food.  
“Thank you,” Jaskier says and Geralt hmms in response.  
They sit as they always did, in companionable silence at the table.   
He looks out and the fence where he almost ran off the cliff is repaired with crude logs as tall as Jaskier’s waist. A deep warmth brews in Jaskier’s chest.

He tests the waters by curling up close to the Witcher. Geralt sighs like he’s been inconvenienced and Jaskier braces to be pushed off like he’d been many times before. Instead, Geralt puts down his mortar and pestle and lifts Jaskier like he weighs nothing more than a bunch of grapes, placing him on his lap.  
“Needy thing,” he breathes in Jaskier’s ear and the words paralyze him.

“Will you be joining me to check the seabug traps at the shore today or are you going to spend all day on your melodies?”

Jaskier was startled by the inquiry that came seemingly unprompted.  
“Ah,” Jaskier started.

The corners of Geralt’s mouth turn up slightly, “You’re the one that wanted to come to the coast. At least come and enjoy it,”

The coast.

Jaskier had seen the coast. Alone. After the mountain.  
Yennefer and he had split ways and he needed to process and unpack all the shit that Geralt had unpacked on to him.  
He’d travelled to the coast, seen the crystal clear water that rolled in waves to meet the white sands of the shore. He’d collected shells and tossed sand dollars back into the ocean. He set up a bonfire and slept up shore, singing songs into the vast blue sea, accidently scaring some fishermen who thought that he was a siren. They were pretty forgiving, considering they didn’t attack Jaskier with their harpoons when they found out he wasn’t a siren.  
***  
As the night dragged on, Jaskier’s eyelids became weary. When they returned to the cabin, he went straight to the writing desk in the corner opposite the kitchen and dug out his diary. If ever there was a place that he would find answers, it would be there. He flickered through the book, finding the entry just before the mountain unchanged, describing the job Geralt was commissioned to do the day after, and the beast in the cave he would have to defeat to earn his coin. It was the entry after the mountain, or rather the fact that one existed. After that mess with Geralt, Jaskier stopped writing entries in his diary, opting to keep it at the bottom of his bag out of sight. When he arrived at Oxenfurt, he started a new diary and kept the old one locked on the bottom draw of his desk, wishing that he could bear to get rid of it, even if the idea was hurtful.  
The entry before the mountain was supposed to be the last one that he ever wrote in that book.

Yet, there were many more after that, and Jaskier read over them again and again, trying in vain to find a clue, a sign, anything that could tell him how this happened. The entries outlined the night after the mountain, how as they climbed down, Jaskier felt powerless to comfort Geralt in his heart-heavy sorrow. Their journey to the coast and how they grew closer, more familiar, until they collided. It was surreal, reading what amounted to his autobiography with a narrator who had experience different events, it was more like reading an account of fiction full to the gills of wish fulfilment.

It was everything he wished for.

Wished.

Jaskier’s eyes widened, the quill going still in his hand. The puzzle that Norbert gave him. It was a Djinn. It had to be, the white light, the rushing wind and the sudden changes. But he hadn’t wished for this, for this life, for everything to be different.

Geralt ‘hmm’ed in a way Jaskier would describe as disapprovingly.  
“Do you plan on coming to bed tonight, bard, or will I wake you up at your desk in the morning?”

They’d shared a bed before, sometimes when their coin was low and they couldn’t afford two rooms or during winter when it was too cold to sleep on the floor and they had to huddle together for warmth. It was something they somewhere along the line decided was fine to do as long they didn’t talk about afterwards which drove Jaskier nuts. Just this morning he woke up in bed with Geralt. Look how he handled that.  
He was afraid that if he went to sleep now, he might wake up in Oxenfurt and find that this was all some cruel dream or a curse sent his way.  
“I’m coming,” Jaskier said, placing his pen in it’s well.  
Jaskier stands there, awkwardly.  
Geralt strips off his shirt and drops it to the floor. He begins working on his boots when he notices Jaskier.  
“Stop watching and start changing,”  
Does he detect the trace amounts of fondness in Geralt’s voice? Surely that was his imagination.   
Geralt lifts the blankets and tucks him under, the pocket of warmth quickly soaking up Jaskier’s form.  
***  
“Where are you going?”  
Jaskier freezes, like he’s been caught doing something wrong.  
“Going for a walk?” he offers. The thought that Geralt wouldn’t let him leave seized him by the throat.  
Geralt looks up from the whetstone and his sword. His yellow eyes rake over Jaskier’s form. Geralt tuts.  
“Not like that.” He rises.  
Geralt comes back and drapes his cloak across Jaskier’s shoulders. It’s a lot of fabric, made for a much broader, armored man, enveloping Jaskier comfortably.  
“The sun is behind the clouds. Won’t keep you warm.” Geralt says, preemptively, as if Jaskier was going to argue.  
Geralt fastens the cloak and cups Jaskier’s face with both hands. Jaskier leans against the touch.  
“Be careful, please.” Geralt says, like he’s ever said ‘please’ to Jaskier in his life, “If you’re not back by dinner, I’ll come find you,”  
Geralt leans in and kisses Jaskier.  
“If you happen to go into town, bring back some bread, won’t you?”

***  
“Geralt,”  
Jaskier receives a hmmm as a response. He smiles to himself.  
“I have a strange request for you,”  
Geralt continues gutting the fish, but Jaskier knows that Geralt is listening to him.  
“Can you tell me how we got here?”  
Geralt shoots him a bemused look.  
“We walked.”  
Jaskier does a full-body groan.  
“You want my account on how you ended up playing house with a Witcher?”  
“Please? I want you to tell it from your point of view,”  
***   
***  
Jaskier trembled. None of it was real. He had fought with Geralt on the mountain, he had spiraled under the pain and sadness he felt in the wake of being cast away from the man he so adored. He had stumbled his way through life until he found light again, with the help of Yennefer and his Oxenfurt colleagues. He had gained so much.  
He might had wanted reality to be different, that didn’t mean it was right to do this.

He understood why Geralt had been in so much anguish after being rejected by Yennefer. Now here he stood, having used a djinn to bind his fate to the Geralt’s to force them to be together. To force Geralt to love him. He was truly awful.

“Geralt, I did something awful.” Jaskier says.

“Jaskier.. I don’t know how to tell you this gently, so I think you should sit back down while I talk to you,” Geralt said.  
“If a djinn did grant your wish, the wish would have been ‘I wish we never fought’,” Geralt waited for Jaskier to agree before continuing, “If that was your wish, then you didn’t wish for us to be together. You only wished that we hadn’t fought on the mountain.” 

“You’re not accountable for the actions you didn’t take,” Jaskier says against Geralt’s chest.   
“Maybe so, but they’re real to you and to pretend that they didn’t hurt you is just as irresponsible as bucking all accountability.”

***  
Yennefer took one look at the two of them and immediately swore so profusely that even Geralt looked a little scandalized. She turned on her heel and walked straight back through the portal. The pair stood there for a moment, watching the space where the portal closed, and then again, a portal opened up and Yennefer stomped out. Her rage was palpable.

“Fuck you both, what have you fucking done?” she hissed so venomously that Geralt felt the need to wrap his arm around Jaskier’s waist in case he had to pull him away from the danger that is a really pissed off Yennefer of Vengerburg.

“I accidently used a djinn to change reality,” Jaskier states.

Yennefer opens her mouth, presumably to yell at them some more, but she closes it and draws her lips into a downturned line. She takes a few good deep breathes.

“What did you change?”  
“In my reality Geralt and I fought on the mountain and he sent me away.”   
The arm around his waist tightens.  
***

“You’re the djinn,” Jaskier said, understanding.

Ranafein nodded, “That I am,”

“Why’d you do this?”

***  
The light was blinding.

Rirele watched him from the end of the bed, annoyed.   
“A bit too much port last night Master Pankratz?” She asked, but it was more like an accusation.

“Shandi said I should let you know that there’s a Witcher in Oxenfurt.” Rirele tosses her hair as she heads out the door.

And Jaskier feels like everything is going to be just fine.


End file.
